


Precipice

by Minutia_R



Category: The Dream Demon - Jayn & Joy & Lily & Lucy (Song)
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 11:55:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6984040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minutia_R/pseuds/Minutia_R
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That’s how it is in dreams, isn’t it?  You fall, and the wind rushes all around you, filling your ears with its sound, driving the breath out of your lungs with its pressure.  You wake up gasping, heart pounding, trying to reassure yourself that it isn’t real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Precipice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VampirePaladin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampirePaladin/gifts).



_The Fool is shown at the beginning of his journey with unlimited potential. The sun rising up behind him represents the beginning of his journey. He is facing north-west, the direction of the unknown. He is looking upwards, toward the sky, or Spirit. He is about to step off a cliff into the material world but is he prepared?_ [x](http://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/major-arcana/fool/)

**The Fool, Upright**  
**Keywords: beginnings, innocence, spontaneity, a free spirit**

You line your shoes up next to the door when you come home, put your keys back in your bag and check for your wallet and phone. You touch the earth in the planters in the window and add water if it seems dry, lingering over the scents of mint, lavender, rosemary. You are a creature of habit, of the sweet melody of comforting routine.

You don't know that you're standing on a precipice.

#

The sidewalk sways beneath your feet, and you laugh, keeping yourself upright against the wall of the nearest building, the bricks still warm from the sunlight of a long summer day. Your mouth tastes of kisses and vodka, your heart pumps to an insistent bass beat, your blood fizzes giddily through your veins.

You have always been dancing on a precipice.

#

You still lie on only one side of the bed. In your mind, you replay the arguments, the jangling disharmonies, the sharp and speaking silences--as if anger could warm the cold and empty hollow in the blankets next to you. But even that slips away. You cannot seem to hold on to anything.

You are looking for a reason not to leap into the precipice.

#

You tuck yourself into your cozy bed. Your head is pillowed on the arm of a friend’s couch. With your last conscious thought, your hand reaches towards the place where your lover no longer lies. You fall asleep.

Just on the other side of sleep, drawn by the varied music of your souls, I am waiting. I am rot and madness and stagnation. I am here to catch you. You step off the edge. And you fall …

That’s how it is in dreams, isn’t it? You fall, and the wind rushes all around you, filling your ears with its sound, driving the breath out of your lungs with its pressure. You wake up gasping, heart pounding, trying to reassure yourself that it isn’t real. The sun is shining. The day is warm. You are standing on a path. On one side of you, the earth comes to an abrupt stop at the edge of a cliff. Will you take the step off the edge, knowing--or not knowing--what’s waiting there? Or will you turn and run the other way, for the safety of solid ground and sunlit places?

This is your dream, and it should be your haven, subject to your will. But the sheltering trees drip venom when you pass beneath them. My claws tear through the clear skies like lightning, and your legs sink into the treacherous earth when you try to flee.

That’s how it is in dreams, isn’t it? Something is chasing you, something you can’t see, but you hear its footsteps--never tiring, though your own lungs are burning for breath. Never slowing, though your own legs grow weak and stumble. Never fooled by your attempts to hide. What’s chasing you will catch you in the end.

When there’s nowhere left your you to run, when I’m nearly upon you, close enough to touch, you shut your eyes and turn your face away, as if that could blot out the darkness. “It isn’t real,” you tell yourself. “It isn’t real, it’s just a dream …”

I laugh, and you shudder at the sound. “Of course it is,” I say.

It doesn’t hurt when I reach into your chest and pull out your heart, your lungs, your liver. They are sweet, and for the moment I’m not hungry, as everything you are melts into me: your love, your fear, your joy.

You have no more breath to speak. I have eaten that too: delicious. But your lips form the words: “What are you?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Nothing at all. And neither are you.”

What happens to a soul when it withers, when all capacity for growth has been eaten out of it? When you move through your days like a wind-up doll, when you laugh as you collapse face-first into a ditch filled with your own vomit, when you spend your life chasing a lost love you will never find again?

With your dream destroyed, what will happen when you wake up?

**The Fool, Reversed**  
**Keywords: naivety, foolishness, recklessness, risk-taking**

You wake up.

But who are you?

I wake up.

When I look at myself in the mirror, I see a hundred different reflections grinning back at me from the splintered glass, and the sight brings me satisfaction. In some of the reflections--the newer ones--eyes widen in confusion, a hand reaches out to touch the mirror, a remaining shred of personality tries to understand what’s happened, hopes that it’s another dream.

But I don’t dream. This is the truth: rot and madness and stagnation. Individuality is only an illusion to be shattered.

My satisfaction doesn’t last. A withered soul cannot sustain itself, and the hunger always returns. In my myriad forms, I walk unnoticed among the dreamers--the ones who still dream--searching for a fresh-blooming soul, listening for your melody.

#

You put the last box into the trunk of the car and close it firmly. You pull your daughter into a tight hug, still surprised that she’s taller than you now. If you feel her trembling, if you hear her sniffle, you don’t let her know you have, and her smile when she lets go and slides into the driver’s seat is blindingly bright. You watch the car out of sight, chest tight with pride and worry, and then you turn back to your house.

She’s starting a new chapter of her life, and you . . . you look through the fridge and consider what to make for dinner. Nothing seems quite worth the effort, when you’re just cooking for one. The house is too big, too empty.

You don’t know that you’re standing on a precipice. And on the other side of sleep, I’m waiting.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the anonymous people who gave me advice about Tarot.


End file.
